


Together, Let the Sky Fall

by thisisthefamilybusiness



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Reality, Bonding issues, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Guide!Q, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of past Bond/others, Sentinel!Bond, Sentinel/Guide, Sentinel/Guide Bonding, Spirit Animals, plot-related not-quite-porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 15:46:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 8,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisthefamilybusiness/pseuds/thisisthefamilybusiness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Bond does not need a Guide, and he certainly does not need a skinny thirty-something in a cardigan to tell him what to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt from Invisiblink on Tumblr!

James Bond does not need a Guide.

He’s forty-five years old, he’s worked for MI6 for fifteen bloody years, and the military before that, and never once has he ever slipped out of control or gotten overwhelmed to the point a Guide would even be useful. He doesn’t need anyone to help him—God only knows any Guide who tried to tag along with him on a mission would only get shot or held hostage or possibly worse and end up being just another complication—and there are all too many stories of Sentinels who get too dependent on their Guides and find themselves unable to function once they’re separated.

So what happened atop that train car, when he’d slipped on his grip on his abilities and gotten a little overwhelmed, and Moneypenny had taken the shot and hit him, and Bond should have been fine, really, but he’d been too busy trying not to go blind and deaf and numb from how agonisingly loud-bright-vivid-painful everything had become to get back up and chase after the assassin—that was really just a moment of damned bad luck, nothing more. It’d been the first Bond had slipped on his containment since university; the only black mark on his otherwise snow-white record.

“Bond, I’ve known you for years,” M said quietly, closing the folder of Bond’s medical and psychological evaluations.

“So you know I’m damned good at this. This is the first time this has happened!”

M pressed her lips into a thin line. “The first time out of how many? I cannot risk losing my best 00 agent to his own stubborn stupidity. This isn’t about your abilities, Bond, this is much bigger. You need a Guide.”

“No.” Bond leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.

“Do not make me report you for refusal to comply with direct orders, 007.”

“Where would I even _find_ a bloody Guide? And who even wants to be a Guide for a double-0 agent?”

“I know someone.” A smile tugged at the corners of M’s mouth. “Just as stubborn as you, actually.”

***~*~*~*~*~*~***

Bond’s new Guide introduces himself as Q, and he’s skinny, young, sloppily dressed, and impossibly upbeat-looking for an eight in the morning meeting in an art gallery.

“Ever had a Guide before?” Q asks politely, staring at the same painting of a warship being tugged off to its grave by a small steamboat that Bond has been glaring at for the past half-hour.

“No, and I don’t really need one. Sorry to disappoint.”

Q laughs—actually laughs, as if he doesn’t know that Bond could kill him a hundred different ways using just his bare hand and has actually briefly contemplated it, before deciding if he’s going to leave purpling bruises on that pale skin they should at least have some fun before it—and shakes his head as he pulls his black briefcase onto his lap. “M warned me about that. All Sentinels need Guides, you know, no shame in it.”

“I have never needed a Guide before because I’ve control over my abilities. I don’t need you,” Bond repeats flatly.

“Yeah, that’s what they all say. Tell me, then, why’ve you been staring at this same painting and sitting without moving in this same place for the past three and a half hours?”

“It hasn’t been three hours!” But Bond takes a glance at his watch out of nagging suspicion, and it reads _11:37_. Bloody hell.

“Exactly. Can’t have our best double-0 Sentinel getting lost on the job, right? That’s what I’m here for.”

“Is that what they teach you in Guide school? That we need you? Make you feel like you’re actually able to do something with your powers?” Bond doesn’t mean it to come out so biting, really, but suddenly Q’s smile is gone and his expression darkens.

“I don’t need you for anything, 007. _I_ was asked to work with _you_ , not the other way around, and if you’re unwilling to _stop being an ass for a few minutes and let me help you_ , I can move on to the next Sentinel who would _love_ to have me as their Guide. So either work with me, and treat me like a proper human being, _Agent_ Bond, or risk losing your job and possibly going mad when you can’t handle your abilities anymore.”

Bond, for the first time in perhaps ever, is actually speechless.

007 had met his match.

 


	2. Range

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Now, please tell me you remember how to shoot, because I'm really a terrible marksman."

“Concentrate, 007, concentrate!” Q’s voice is likely barely above a whisper in the tinny earpiece, but it _feels_ like he’s screaming in Bond’s ear.

Bond tries to take aim at the paper target, but his hands refuse to stop shaking. “I am, I am. Now stop shouting!” he hisses. The harsh florescent glow of the shooting range’s lights are all too bright and burning in his eyes, blinding him if he keeps his eyes open for too long.

“Bond. Listen to me. I have you now. It’s going to be okay. Just focus on what you’re feeling. What are you feeling? Tell me.”

He can feel the sweat sticking his shirt to his back, the ache of the scar from where Moneypenny shot him, the solid hot weight of the gun in his hands, the vaguely-comforting weight of his safety glasses, the way his sound-muffling headgear does almost nothing for him, but at least Q’s voice is calming (if too loud). It’s like someone turned the world into high-definition and upped the contrast, gave every sensation a glass-knife’s edge. “Sweaty. Tired. Sore.... Overwhelmed.” Words that don’t even cover half of it, but Q wouldn’t understand anyways, sitting in his flat on his laptop kilometres away from the chaos of the shooting range, connected only to Bond’s earpiece and the hidden camera in Bond’s safety glasses.

“Good. Now, look at the target.”

Bond forcibly opens his eyes and locks his vision on the black-and-red outline on the paper hanging. “I am.”

“Good, good. And can you see the marked area?”

Bond almost laughs—of course he can see the marked area, he can see every speck of dust and gunpowder and stray spot of ink on the damned bloody target, he’s a _Sentinel_!—but chokes it down. “Yes, I can.”

“Now, please tell me you can remember how to shoot, because I’m really a terrible marksman.”

At that, Bond actually _does_ laugh—and he’s so busy laughing that he fails to notice his hands have finally stopped shaking, his senses settling back from the oversaturated vividness of the zone and into reality.

And for a moment, Bond wonders how he'd ever been able to hit a target on mark without Q to Guide him, but the thought is shoved back into the recesses of his mind as quickly as it came—no need to give M any leverage on bragging rights. 007 does not do losing, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is shaping up to be less of one long, continuous fic, and more like snippets, scenes, and longer oneshots within an over-arching plotline. Which, luckily, means more frequent updates of varying length and content!


	3. And I'll Mirror Images Back at You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q is not, by his nature, normally one to ever care about what anyone else thinks.

Q is not, by his nature, normally one to ever care about what anyone else thinks.

After all, he’s a freak of nature—a Guide without the ability to form a bond to any Sentinel (and he’s tried, God knows he tried)—and managed to turn that into a relatively successful business, working with Sentinels who don’t want the inevitably-lifelong commitment of having a bonded Guide or had abilities weak enough that just a little training with a Guide occasionally was enough to keep them in control.

He was a nightmare-worthy embarrassment to his family (“It’s not enough you’ve got to be one of _them_ , but you’ve got to be a _defective_ one?” his mother had once screamed at him), so mortified of it that Q used to tell people he’d been bonded once, that his Sentinel had died and left him bondless—but he realised that it didn’t matter. He just stopped listening to what everyone else thought, and moved along and made himself a nice little sum off of it all.

Yet there is something infinitely unsettling about how people stare at him since starting to work with James Bond.

It’s a bit of awe, a bit of shock and surprise—as if Q has become a god or something. Certainly not the repulsion and confusion he was used to when he explained what exactly he was, not the _“What’s wrong with you?”_ he’s familiar with.

Perhaps Q would feel suspicious if he was dealing with anyone but Bond. Being with Bond is... disturbingly easy. He’s obstinate and frustratingly set in his ways, charming, quick on his feet. A man going a million kilometres an hour, brilliant, dangerous (oh, _definitely_ dangerous): enough adjectives and superlatives to fill a novel.

And God help him, but Q _wants_. He _wants_ , for the first time so selfishly, to bond, to connect as only Guides and Sentinels can, to live in Bond’s headspace and see the world in Bond’s eyes, to be the Guide voice Bond listens to in his mind.

But this is what he has—communication by hidden cameras, earpieces and microphones, phone calls from unlisted numbers buzzing with static and the crackle of gunfire in the background.

Q plans to cling to it as long as he possibly can.


	4. And I'll Cross Oceans, Like Never Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, lying alone in the midnight-dark silence of his flat, Bond thinks about writing a book.

Sometimes, lying alone in the midnight-dark silence of his flat, Bond thinks about writing a book.

He never liked writing in school. He doesn’t read too much, either. This book, this book though—it wouldn’t be just a book. It would be his story: Vesper, Tracy, his parents, his abilities, his work...

Bond’s written the entire book in his head, of course, already knows what would happen, what names would have to be changed, the different settings he’d need. Now, though, he wonders what chapter Q falls under, in his rumpled slacks and seemingly-endless collection of mismatched cardigans: under the Sentinel chapter, under the Allies and Colleagues chapter, or some new section.

 

***~*~*~*~*~***

Trying to ignore the way his senses scream at him through the veil of adrenaline as Patrice slams him into a glass wall, Bond focuses his thoughts in on Q. On the fact Q had exactly sixteen kinds of tea in his flat, and all but one were variations of Earl Grey, and didn’t own a single good suit or even a pair of matching socks. Q, Q would know what to do, probably laugh at Bond for getting into this fight in the first place. Yes, Q, that’s a good thought, good distraction; Q, poking fun at Bond’s taste in music, Q, trying to explain what the hell an _Eye-Phone_ was and why anyone would think something purposely made to be GPS-tracked by any computer in the world would be a good idea.

Q, answering his door at nine in the morning in his pyjamas and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, only to start swearing in panic when he saw an exhausted, blood-splattered Bond. Q, embarrassed when Bond found the complete discography of The Cure in vinyl, hidden behind a few shit action novels on a bookshelf in his flat, then Q, dancing with no rhythm or grace to _Friday I’m In Love_ , while Bond tried to keep up, laughing like he hadn’t in years.

Yes, Q, Q, and it’s Q in his mind telling him what to do— _Patrice is right-handed, Bond, left is his weakest side, now, he’s a sniper, not used to close-range fighting_ —and then, then Bond decides Q definitely is getting his own chapter in the book Bond’s written in his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to mention this, but this and the previous chapters' titles come from 'Shelter' by The xx.


	5. Shelter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q wakes up to a buzzing rendition of the Mission: Impossible theme blaring from his mobile, fumbling blindly for it on his bedside table.

Q wakes up to a buzzing rendition of the _Mission: Impossible_ theme blaring from his mobile, fumbling blindly for it on his bedside table. Only about six people in the world have that phone number, and only one has the _Mission: Impossible_ set as his ringer (“I don’t understand... This film sounds ridiculous!” Bond had protested when Q had tried to explain the joke).

“Q, Q!” Bond is almost yelling, voice broken up by static.

“Are you okay?” He’s already running through the laundry mental list of things that could have gone horribly wrong while Bond was on this particular mission: Bond shot and bleeding, Bond slipping off into the zone and ending up dead because Q was trapped in London and left him helplessly unbounded, because he’s a defective Guide...

“What were you doing about ten minutes ago?”

Q clicks on the lamp, groaning and reaching for his glasses. “Sleeping. It’s five in the morning here, Bond, what’s wrong?”

Bond is suspiciously quiet for a long minute.  “So, you weren’t doing anything _besides_ sleeping?”

“What part of _it’s_ _five in the bloody morning_ did you not understand? No, I wasn’t doing anything besides sleeping.” Q is rapidly learning he is not a morning person, especially when woken up by certain double-0 agents who like to talk in riddles at appallingly early hours.

“I thought... Hmph. Never mind.”

“Thought _what_?” Q drags himself into his flat’s mockery of a kitchen and turns the electric kettle on.  “You already woke me up at five on my one day off to sleep in, you aren’t getting off that easily.”

“I heard your voice.” Bond’s quiet now—quiet enough that Q can barely hear him over the noise of the kettle heating up and the rustling as Q looks for that container of instant coffee he knew had somewhere in this cupboard. “I was fighting Patrice, trying not to slip off, and I tried to think about you, and I heard your voice.”

Q nearly drops the container of coffee. “My voice?”

“Sounded like your voice, at least. I thought you might’ve done something, somehow figured out your Guide voice.”

“Guide voices only form after a _bond_ , I can’t bond. You know that.” Yet Q’s hands are shaking as he dumps two, three spoonfuls of coffee powder into his favourite _Q_ Scrabble mug. “If you’re hearing a Guide voice, it’s not me.”

Quiet, punctured only by the static of long-distance calling.

“Then why did I hear _you_? I may not be an expert in the usual Sentinel-Guide relations, but I’m quite confident in my ability to tell voices apart, and this was yours.”

 _An expert in the usual Sentinel-Guide relations._ Nothing about this relationship has been _usual_ , even by Q’s standards—Hell, Q’s contract with MI6 was only to help Guide Bond when Bond felt like he needed it, yet Q spends more time with Bond than he does with his actual friends—and everything about it has broken the fine line of professionalism Q normally prides himself on.

“I don’t know. I’m not your _usual_ Guide, you know.”

Bond sighs.

Quiet.

“I hope you do realise that I don’t get free long-distance on my mobile, Bond.”

“I know.”

Q grabs the kettle and pours water into his mug. It’s going to be a three-cups-of-coffee-before-sunrise type of day. He can feel it. 


	6. Looking In from the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> M almost spits tea all over her files when she sees 007 walk in to her office, holding actual paperwork.

“Has anyone told you that you’re likely a sociopath before?” Q asks, watching Bond field-strip his gun once more as Q merrily hacks around on his laptop –of _course_ Bond maintenances his weapons when bored, Q should’ve guessed, seeing as how he’s already established Bond breaks into his flat as entertainment.

Bond doesn’t even look up from his work. “Frequently. It’s why I’m allowed a licence to kill.”

“Who designed this gun?” Q grabs the half-reassembled weapon off his kitchen table, eyeing the skin-warm metal in the florescent light. “The design is sixteen different kinds of inefficient.... Please tell me MI6 didn’t actually design and give you this.”

“You believe you could do better?" Bond is doubtful, a little dubious, raising an eyebrow and keeping his gaze locked on his beloved Beretta in Q’s grip.

 “I studied computer programming and engineering at university. What do you think I do in my free time?”

***~*~*~*~*~***

M almost spits tea all over her files when she sees 007 walk in to her office, holding actual _paperwork_. “What strange alternate universe have we entered now, Bond?”

“I’ve got an application.” Bond drops the file of paperwork in front of M, sitting down in the chair in front of her imposingly modern desk and settling into a familiar glaring match with her ugly porcelain bulldog statuette.

“Application for _what_?”

“For a job. Quartermaster division is hiring, I have an excellent candidate for the job.”

M eyes the folder suspiciously as she opens it, skimming over the application form. “007,” she says slowly. “Isn’t this your Guide?”

Bond gives the faintest impression of a smile.

***~*~*~*~*~***

By very description, Q and Bond are polar opposites.

 Bond wears expensive, well-tailored suits.

Q owns one suit he bought at a charity shop for a funeral and kept for important meetings.

Bond has a licence to kill, and makes his living off of it.

Q has only ever been in one fight: he’d been in primary school, and it mostly consisted of him trying to keep his vital organs safe

Bond has a signature drink that he named after his tragic dead lover.

Q’s never had a lover, let alone a tragic dead one, and the closest to a _signature drink_ he comes is his morning cup of Earl Grey tea.

Bond studied abroad and served in the military before joining MI6.

Q went to public school and interned with MI6 for a month at university before starting his own Guiding business.

Bond actually made his name his bloody damned catchphrase.

Q’s real name is _Quintilian_ , after an old Roman philosopher: _Quintilian Quincy Boothroyd_.

Really, matching Bond with Q had been a little bit of joke to M, knowing full well that they were incompatible in almost every way possible. Q was supposed to have been a simple training exercise to get Bond used to the idea of a Guide before finding someone more compatible in MI6.  

Yet M had clearly misread things, because only three months later, M is staring at a letter of recommendation for Q’s application to Quartermaster division, written by Bond himself, accompanied by a request to renew Q’s contract as a permanent one since his "prescence has become critical" and Agent Moneypenny had noted on it Q had made 007 "less of a prickly bastard."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is once again from The xx (song: Night Time), which is possibly a band all about 00Q. And thank you all for your lovely comments! ( u_u )


	7. Now I Don't Ever Have to Leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q is, apparently, quite.... average.

Physically and psychologically, there isn’t much out of the ordinary about Q, or at least given what Bond can find in the MI6 records on him—no warnings or notes in his files besides his evaluator from his university internship marking down “possible sociopath” and “chronically disinterested in things that offer no intellectual stimulation, i.e. paperwork and manual labour”. Q is, apparently, quite... _average_.

Bond is not ignorant when it comes to the Internet and research, despite what Q seems to think, and all of his investigation only has found two explanations for Guides who can’t bond with Sentinels: either there is a physical problem, likely stemming from the brain’s inability to produce the proper levels of adrenalin and endorphins and other chemicals needed to bond, or there is a psychological block keeping the Guide from it. The latter is often caused by mental disorders and psychological trauma; the former, brain damage, birth defects, or simple genetic flaw.

Bond found no record of mental illness, defect, or brain injury in Q’s records, and while certainly Bond could get a sample of Q’s DNA to test easily enough, he isn’t quite sure how he’d explain to Medical why he needed it tested and what he needed it tested for without his cover being blown, nor could he come up with a safe way of asking Q about it.

This is, of course, how Bond finds himself standing in a dim-lit bookshop in Soho at four in the afternoon, searching for a specific book that had been advertised to ‘Guides and Sentinels struggling with bonding due to psychological blocks’, trying not to asphyxiate on the overpowering smell of fresh ink and paper as he picks his way through the self-improvement section.

“Can I help you?” asks a clerk, appearing behind him on tip-toes, her smile cloyingly bright to Bond. She’s maybe twenty-five years old: curvy, tall, brunette, green-eyed, vaguely exotic looking, all of what Bond normally likes in a woman.

But Bond merely waves his newfound copy of _Difficulty-Free Bonding_ at her and asks if they accept cheques—regardless of how much Moneypenny likes to point out his habit of shagging anyone relatively attractive, Bond is fully aware of the importance of time and place.

Right now, he’s got Q waiting for him at MI6 to bring him back the still mostly-intact radio and gun from last mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Islands" by The xx.
> 
> I just realised I said Q went to 'public school' last chapter, which was me forgetting I wasn't setting this in America and being a clot. I had meant 'public school' in the American sense of 'government-funded equal-opprotunity-education school', not in the English sense of 'expensive selective school'. Apologies for any confusion, and thank you to candii for pointing it out to me!


	8. Lesson One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lesson One: The biggest problem keeping most Guides and Sentinels from achieving a proper bond is a complex relationship.

 

> _Lesson One: The biggest problem keeping most Guides and Sentinels from achieving a proper bond is a complex relationship. This, however, is simple to solve, with effort, time, and patience! Many pairs find themselves unable to bond as quickly as they expect, merely because of the unrealistic expectations set by popular culture! Try to define your relationship and deepen your own connections with each other in other ways, and the bonding will happen naturally!_

Bond isn’t sure what to consider Q; he’s more than a friend, more than an ally, different from Vesper, different from the endless queue of lovers and enemies and colleagues, something Bond’s vocabulary lacks an appropriate word for.

If Q had been a woman, Bond thinks, he’d know exactly what to do: start with a expensive dinner at some glamorous restaurant in a five star hotel, drink and dine her until her eyelids drooped and she smiled at him with glassy eyes and her lipstick smudged, take her out to a casino or an art gallery where the game was _see how long they can kiss before they needed to breathe_ and the discussion was less about classical painters and more about _that endlessly fun trick with his tongue Bond picked up from the Japanese girl in Monaco_. Q, of course, would be more than his usual one-night stand, which would add an interesting spin to it all, but Bond knows how to _deepen his connections_ with women quite well.

If Q had been another double-0 agent, Bond thinks, he’d at least have more of an idea of what to do. It takes a certain personality type to earn a double-0 rank, guaranteeing at least some common ground to work from. Maybe take Q hunting, if Q was anything like 003, or take Q out for drinks and blackjack, if he was more like 005. All the double-0s had a certain... _preference_ for high-risk, dangerous games and entertainment; perhaps the work forced it upon them, or the work attracted them to it. Q hates shooting, hates gambling, and gets his greatest adrenalin rush from breaking through enemies’ computer firewalls and re-designing a handgun for maximum range.

So Bond steals the worn Moleskin journal Q writes in, slipping it into his pocket from Q’s desk at MI6 while Q glares at the earpiece Bond smashed in a fight with two ex-KGB agents two days ago.

“You’re lucky I like you, 007,” Q grumbles, staring at the tangle of skin-coloured plastic and wire dismally. “This was a very expensive prototype, I wanted to at least get some data on it before it got destroyed.”

“The sound was clear, the microphone worked, it was almost invisible in my ear. What other data do you even need?”

 

***~*~*~*~*~***

Q’s journal mainly consists of concepts and sketches for new gadgets and weaponry, to-do lists, and notes to himself, all in his spidery-slanted scrawl in a rainbow of blue and black ink and slate-grey graphite.

Bond would have severely disappointed, if not for the huge not-quite-soliloquy at the back of the worn notebook, written in a variety of ink colours, as if Q had just kept adding on to the list as time went on.

> _I do not have a crush on James Bond. James Bond is an enormous arrogant pompous arse who shags everyone who stands still long enough and tries to kill everything else. James Bond is a sociopath. James Bond is a prick who has a catchphrase, a pretentious accent, a ridiculous wardrobe, and drinks martinis. James Bond is ~~my~~ a Sentinel. James Bond overcompensates in everything he does because of deep-seated questions of sexuality and Freudian concepts of manhood. James Bond is not attractive. I do not want to shag James Bond. James Bond is an alcoholic with a sundry variety of mental problems who should stop acting like a child and consult a therapist. I do not like, love, or enjoy the company of James Bond. _

And as Bond reads on, the plan slots together in his mind perfectly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK, A PRE-EMPTIVE WARNING CHANGE FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER-BIT! *ducks back behind keyboard* LOOK, THE FANMIX I MADE AND HAVE BEEN WRITING TO! http://qwertermerster.tumblr.com/post/36997073890/steady-walking-bound-to-trip-a-00q


	9. The (Unspoken) Rules of MI6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Normally, Q has rules.

It begins with a suit.

Q isn’t even sure how Bond got his measurements (because there is only one person Q knows who would even know where to get a custom-tailored suit like that), nor how Bond managed to get through the rather elaborate security system Q’s been working on, but as Q stumbles into his flat after a two AM missile crisis, he notices it hanging neatly from his coat rack, too exhausted to do anything but glare at it uselessly.

Six hours of pure unconsciousness and one cup of Earl Grey later, Q finds himself inspecting the suit: grey pinstripe, simple white shirt, dark blue tie. It’s clearly designer, tailor-made, and it shows in the material; pressed crisply and professionally and smelling lightly of cologne that cost more than Q used to make in an entire year.

Out of some morbid curiosity, Q finds himself trying it on, and as expected, it fits perfectly.

“Now you’re halfway to decent.” Q jumps a little at the voice, turning to see Bond standing in his doorway, fiddling with the tripwire to the alarm in the knob. “Your hair is atrocious, but the suit’s an improvement. We’ve got a mission.”

“It’s my day off,” Q protests weakly, watching as Bond locks his eyes on him, the same way he’s seen Bond stare at a good martini or a girl in a too-tight dress or a particular dangerous weapon.

“That’s the second of the unspoken rules of MI6, Q: There is no such thing as a day off.”

“And what’s the first?”

Bond smirks. “Oh, just ask Moneypenny.”

But Q blanches, because he already knows.

_Everyone has a crush on 007, Q, you know, nothing to be ashamed of._

***~*~*~*~*~***

There really is a mission that Bond’s been assigned; that much is true.

Of course, the mission was less of a proper _mission_ and more of a frustrated M yelling at him to go somewhere that wasn’t her office and do something that wasn’t provoking other agents or interfering with Q branch’s latest experiment.

 Not that Q needs to know this—and as far as Bond is concerned, the possibility of actual bonding with Q outweighs any little lies told in the grand scheme of thing—so when Q asks why he couldn’t just hole back up with his laptop and work via technology as usual when he’s on a mission, Bond shrugs and says something vague about M and experiments between all Sentinel double-0 agents and their Guides in the field.

The casino and gambling is all for the benefit of the illusion, of course, just as much as the way Bond had perhaps leaned a little closer in than necessary to whisper his explanations of poker and roulette was, and making sure that the drinks kept coming, because despite Q’s appearance, he had so far managed to keep up pace with Bond in drinking.

“You should fold, your cards are shit,” Bond whispers.

Q glares at him. “You forget I have a promising career in espionage. I am perfectly capable of counting cards, and I have a fantastic hand, comparatively speaking.”

“A promising career in espionage?” Bond bites back his laughter.

“Yes, unlike a certain double-0 agent who should be getting a certain Quartermaster another vodka on the rocks, since said Quartermaster just won him five thousand dollars on a two hundred dollar investment.”

***~*~*~*~*~***

Normally, Q has rules. Very strict, very important rules, most of which consist of _not sleeping with James Bond_ and certainly include _not drunkenly, sloppily having sex with James Bond_ _in a bloody casino hotel room_ like Q is no better than any of the girls that regularly throw themselves at 007 whenever given the opportunity.

But watching Bond pull off his shirt and rake his eyes over Q spread out on the bed, Q simultaneously decides that yes, he is most definitely going to drunkenly, sloppily have sex with James Bond, and that his rules can go straight to hell as Q pulls Bond back down onto the mattress to kiss him hot and deep and wet, because if Q is going to do this, he’s damned well going to make it count as more than just another warm body in a dark hotel room in Bond’s vague memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your lovely comments! ヾ(＾∇＾) This fic just keeps growing and growing, and I'm glad to see that people like it!


	10. Lesson One, Activity Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I hate you so bloody fucking much,” Q grumbles weakly.

> _Lesson One, Activity Two: By now, you and your partner have defined your relationship and are ready to start working on developing a deeper emotional and psychological bond! For this activity, you and your partner should select a high-energy activity (that you both enjoy!) to do together, and just share in the experience, focusing on how your partner communicates. Communication is key in any relationship, but especially for Sentinel-Guide pairs!_

“Q is hit, Q is hit! Do we have an agent down—Shit, we just lost visual, we’ve lost visual contact, do you copy, 007?” Moneypenny shouts into Bond’s earpiece, loud enough to his suddenly-overpowering hearing that he later wonders how his eardrums didn’t rupture. “007, do you copy? Do we have an agent down? I repeat, 007, we have lost visual contact, do we have an agent down?”

Bond grunts and heaves himself to his feet, ribs aching in protest as he stumbles over to where Q is curled up against the concrete wall of the empty apartment, Q’s hand uselessly clamped over his left side where blood is steadily oozing out over his mustard-coloured cardigan. “Oh, I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” Q mumbles.

“I copy. Q is hit, but the targets are dead. Medical crew?”

“On their way, of course.”

“Good.” Bond crouches down and pries Q’s hand away from his side and inspects the wound for a second before tearing off a strip of his own shirt and wrapping it around his own hand to keep the pressure on it. “For never having been in a gunfight, you did excellently.”

Q turns his pale face up towards Bond, glaring as dourly as he can manage through the haze of pain before rolling his eyes and relaxing a little. “I hate you so bloody fucking much,” he grumbles weakly.

“Without me you would be dead now.”

“Without you, I would not be in bloody Morocco, chased down by internationally wanted killers and bleeding out after a gunfight... I would be sitting happily in my flat... Drinking tea and breaking government firewalls, safely.”

“Sounds terribly dull.” Bond tightens the pressure, glancing at his watch again to check how long before a doctor arrived.

“You’re.... You’re terribly dull. Stupid bloody spy....”                  

Perhaps keeping Q from bleeding out after a fight isn’t quite what _Difficulty-Free Bonding_ had meant by _high-energy activity_ , but Bond decides it’s close enough to count. 


	11. Dreaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I don't dream, Bond!"

Q had been running hard, chased through a deserted London's streets by what his memory of childhood trips to the zoo supplied as being a _snow leopard_ , cold biting through his fur ( _fur?_ ) and ice underneath his paws ( _paws?_ ) as he ran as fast as he could. 

But no matter how quickly Q seemed to move, how fast he turned corners and leaped over stalled cars and trash bins, the leopard was always right behind him, moving silently, bizarrely human blue eyes locked in on Q as he fled. 

Q had finally collapsed on the street in front of the MI6 building, at last utterly exhausted, nothing left in himself to do anything but pant and bury his small form ( _small form?_ ) into a snow bank as the leopard circled in for the inevitable kill.

Yet the leopard didn't make a hostile move as it approached Q, settling down upon its great haunches and gently nosing at Q’s soft ginger fur coat ( _ginger fur coat?_ ) until Q growled quietly, too tired to really protest, and picked Q up by the scruff of his neck ( _the scruff of his neck?_ ) between its teeth. 

Q whined pitifully, struggling weakly, as the leopard carried him in from the snow and into the abandoned MI6 lobby, setting him upon the cool-tiled floor. It ignored his complaints; curling itself around Q, purring and carefully laving its rough tongue over Q's matted, snow-wet fur—

Q snaps to consciousness with a shout as Bond shakes him awake.

He’s curled up beside Bond in his bed on a cold Sunday morning, naked and sweaty-sticky, out of breath, vivid pictures of impossible memories tattooed on the back of his eyelids: not in an empty MI6, not as a fox (a fox, yes, a fox, that was it, he’d been a _fox_ ) and not next to any snow leopards.

"Are you okay?" Bond actually looks quite concerned, Q notes to himself, a true first for him. He flicks on Q's bedside lamp, frown deepening.

Q swallows hard. "I think I had a dream."

"Is that...bad?" 

"I don't dream, Bond, I can't dream! Proper Guides and Sentinels can dream about spirits and their partners, regular people can dream about anything, but _I don’t dream_. I _can't_ dream!" If there is a touch of hysteria in his tone, Q thinks it's absolutely justified. 

Q just _doesn't dream_. It had been of the first signs that he was unable to bond, back when he was only a few years old and his mother still insisted that he was perfectly functional as a Guide, dragging him off to doctor after doctor to try and "fix" him. By now, he's grown so used to not dreaming that he barely notices it anymore, never wonders what dreaming would be like.

One dream later, Q wonders how regular people manage to get any rest at all, if dreaming is anything like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must give credit to Kasugai for the chase/cuddling idea and other commenters for asking about the morning-after, both of which I read while trying to come up with how to work spirit animals in and, well, the muse ran off with the idea, as muses are wont to do.


	12. Lesson Two, Activity One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lesson Two, Activity One: Physical contact is an easy way of establishing a better psychological connection with each other. (Or, an extremely short interlude of plot-relevant not-quite-porn.)

> _Lesson Two: Your relationship is developing into something deeper and more defined now, and that’s the biggest step you’ll have to take in this process! Often when there is difficulty in bonding, it’s because you both feel anxious and pressured to connect immediately. Stress actually makes bonding very difficult, so it’s important you make sure you’re both relaxed and comfortable before trying any of the bonding activities given in this lesson!_
> 
> _Activity One: Physical contact is an easy way of establishing a better psychological connection with each other. If you and your Sentinel or Guide are romantically involved, try to make a habit of sleeping in the same bed, if possible, and encourage kissing, hugging, or, if you’re in a romantic mood, take the time to really explore your partner’s body! If you aren’t, this is a great opportunity to enjoy a physical activity like partner yoga or a take a class for trust-building together._

Bond drags his fingers slowly over Q’s chest, watching as the flush deepens and spreads across the milk-white skin, Q’s breath stuttering and faltering.

“Come on... Put your back into it,” Q grumbles, wrapping his legs around Bond’s hips and arching his back as best he can, pinned under Bond.

Bond smirks into the skin of Q’s neck, pressing fluttering kisses behind his ear, inhaling the woodsy scent of his shampoo. “ _You_ put your back into it—” And before Bond can really process anything, can even finish his sentence, Q’s shoved him over and straddled him, groaning, and the angle is just _that_ much better. Bond finds he has all the more access to that much more skin, squeezing Q’s hipbones and scratching fingernails down his back, for once blessing Sentinel sensitivity training as Q rolls his hips again and smiles lazily.

“No, don’t be a tease, 007...” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ..... What do you mean that that's not what Q meant with 'Put your back into it!'? Context, context.... I had intended to make this part of a longer update, but it just didn't merge as well as I wanted, so taaa-daaa: one shorter chapter here and now, and a longer one saved for later! But, aside from plot and organisational necessities that affect chapter length, are longer, less frequent or shorter, almost-daily updates better?


	13. Lesson Two, Activity Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Activity Two: Many Sentinels and Guides find meditation a useful tool for bonding...

> _Lesson Two, Activity Two: Many Sentinels and Guides find meditation a useful tool for bonding. Many places now offer classes specifically for Sentinel-Guide meditation and bonding workshops, but you can try similar activities on your own! Find yourself and your partner a relaxing, quiet space, where you can focus on attuning your senses and thoughts on each other. Try to follow a common train of thought as one—you may find online articles and suggestions for meditation exercises a great resource. If you’ve worked with the concept of spirit animals before, why not try and meditate upon them together, interacting?_

After six and a half months, Bond stops paying the rent on his flat and moves his few worldly possessions into Q’s flat. They never really discussed it, but they both sleep better when Bond leaves his Beretta on the bedside table and Q folds himself around Bond like a touch-starved octopus, and it’s not as if Bond has anything to take with him besides a few suits and a few more weapons; he’s not exactly one for _sentimental value_.

Lying underneath the ridiculous neon green blanket on Q’s bed— _their_ bed now, he supposes—Bond closes his eyes and focuses in on the man fast asleep beside him.

 _Quartermaster Quintilian Boothroyd_ , the fastest-rising (and most promising) Quartermaster MI6 had had in years, since before Bond had even been promoted to the double-0 rank, _Q_ by nickname and by rank, thirty-one years old, with only three major scars on his body (one from being shot in the gut back in Morocco, and two from surgery as a child to fix the kidney failure that forced him into quiet, sedate activities like computer engineering instead of fighting and football like any other eight year old boy) and an unnatural passion for Earl Grey tea.

Q, as a small reddish-brown fox, running through the rainy moors Bond had grown up on, while Bond agilely—if less swiftly—bounds after him as a leopard, playfully chasing him until Q gives up in exhaustion at Skyfall’s doorstep, letting Bond carry him into the heat of the house and try to comfort Q as Bond knows he never could find the power to do in the real world.

Here, in this dark space between imagination and dreams, Bond imagines there is safety and warmth, for a cat and a fox, for a bloody big old warship and a sleek new generation of spy.


	14. The Difficulty with "Difficulty-Free", Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond’s copy of Difficulty-Free Bonding is missing.

Bond’s copy of  _Difficulty-Free Bonding_  is missing.

This would be less of a problem, of course, if the last place Bond had placed it wasn’t on the kitchen counter because  _Q wasn’t supposed to be back from the weapons exposition in the States for two more bloody days_ , and if Bond hadn’t come home from taking down an Italian Mafia leader to find Q fiddling around between two of his laptops on their couch, back early.

Either there is a bizarrely illogical higher power that has taken pity upon James Bond for no known reason, or Q is waiting for the proper moment to strike, and Bond doesn't believe in mercy (or God, really).

***~*~*~*~*~*~***

“What  _is_  this?” Q thumbs through the pages of  _Difficulty-Free Bonding_ , glancing at the spidery lines of Bond’s handwritten notes in the margins and collection of mysterious stains on its dog-eared pages.

Moneypenny raises a single eyebrow. “That,” she says slowly, “That is called a book.”

He rolls his eyes and tosses  _Difficulty-Free Bonding_  down to glare at the screen’s map of agents being tracked, glaring especially hard at the little red dot labelled  _007_  in Shanghai. “I know that. I found it on our counter.”

“Oh,  _our_  counter? You’re getting quite serious now, Q, you’re using collective possessive nouns.” Moneypenny grabs the book off of the desk.

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, you can get out of my branch and go back to M’s office.”

“Q... Is... Is this Bond’s book?” Moneypenny bites back her laughter, flipping through the book.

“Well, it’s sure as hell not mine, and unless someone actually got through a security system I designed to keep 007 out....”

“Because.... This is a book. A, a book for Sentinels and Guides who can’t bond. A terrible, terrible book on bonding. This is like... Like,  _romance-novel_  terrible advice on bonding. And you, you said it’s Bond’s?”

Q gives her a thoroughly annoyed look.

Moneypenny finally explodes into laughter. “This is rich. Oh my god. 007 bought a horrible, horrible romantic book on bonding! James Bond,  _James fucking Bond_ walked into a store and actually  _bought_  this drivel! For you!”

He throws a failed prototype for a poison-dart pen at her and glowers, but nothing can really hide the way he’s flushing pink.

“So these are all his notes, then? Oh my  _god_....” She skimmed over the pages quickly. “Wait.... Did you  _actually_  tell him to ‘put his back into it’?  _Oh my god!_  Q!”

“Shut up! That was... personal!” Q snatches the book from Moneypenny’s grip, now bright red in the face.

“What  _else_  is in there?”

“If you tell anyone about this, Moneypenny, I will frame you for hacking into top-secret personnel files, get your name blacklisted by every intelligence agency,  and tell 004 that you’ve been staring at him like a lovesick schoolgirl again.”

“004 isn’t that bad, really....”

“I will  _destroy_  you."


	15. The Difficulty with "Difficulty-Free", Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why can’t you ever leave things well enough alone, Bond?”

“Why can’t you ever leave things well enough alone, Bond?” Q’s grip on the spine of the worn paperback is so tight that his knuckles go whiter than the bedsheets.

Bond forces a smile and slides closer to where Q has folded himself up on the edge of their bed. “I earn my living off of interfering with things. Call it a force of habit.”

Silence fills a too-long minute as Q keeps staring at the dappling of early-morning sunlight on the old wooden floors and Bond tries to formulate a course of action even as his instincts tell him just to leave _because that’s what he does, that’s all he knows_ , _and betrayal and disaster and death follow in his shadow and wouldn’t Q be better off with someone who wasn’t going to inevitably end up being in some way responsible for their death?_

“I’m sorry,” Bond ventures quietly, reaching out to rub Q’s back.

Q flinches away. “I can’t connect with anyone. I can’t bond, with you or with anyone else, and I’ve dealt with that quite fine on my own for the past three decades, you may have noticed. Some shit advice book isn’t going to fix anything. Don’t you think I’ve tried?”

“I know.”                                            

“No, you don’t.”

Silence again.

“It was working, though.”

“ _What_?”

“In all those books on dreaming you read, did you never reach the conclusion that perhaps the leopard chasing you was more than symbolic?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week and the half of the next are my weeks for finals and midterms, so I'll keep updating as frequently as I can, but it'll be more like every-three-days as opposed to every day or every other day.


	16. Pretty Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond can’t seem to get over his habit of fucking every femme fatale stereotype he meets while he’s on mission.

Bond can’t seem to get over his habit of fucking every femme fatale stereotype he meets while he’s on mission, but at least he’s making a good-faith effort to die less and come back to MI6 in one piece and on time, and that’s enough for Q.

Q is all too capable of getting into any hotel’s security feed and planting bugs, however and technically, it isn’t abusing technology. Bond has a knack for ending up in bed with women who do things like keep a gun strapped to their thigh and try to murder him, and it’s Q’s job to make sure Bond doesn’t _actually_ get murdered, no matter the circumstances (or how Moneypenny lectures on about the ridiculousness of the idea of a monogamous 007).

(But if Q _happens_ to notice that Bond doesn’t kiss anyone else while he beds them for God and Country, well, it’s just a lucky coincidence. Q’s needed a good way to test the new hidden camera that’s got a high-definition audio and video feed, after all. )

***~*~*~*~*~***

Q does not bond.

He’s thirty-one years old and he’s known he was a Guide since he was a child, and it only took him a little over a decade, but he’s accepted that he will never be a fully functional Guide. His failure to bond is his only major defect, and he’s learned to live with it, to deal with it.

But because Q couldn’t ever live a simple life, he couldn’t be paired off with one of the hundreds of Sentinels who would be content never to bond. No, Q gets James Bond, the infuriatingly pig-headed, persistent James Bond who (of course) always gets what he wants, Q’s physical and mental functions be damned.

When he wakes up early on a Sunday, his mind still drifting somewhere between the dream-hazy image of a leopard and the solid weight of Bond beside him, Q inhales heavily, taking in Bond’s ridiculous expensive cologne and his own cheap woodsy shampoo, the laundry detergent he uses on the sheets.

Sometimes Bond comes in from his missions still smelling like some doe-eyed damsel in distress’s floral perfume, or the more exotic fragrances favoured by the more dangerous women, and Q wonders if those women could smell him on Bond, if they noticed the odd mingling of Bond’s pinewood aftershave and Chanel cologne and then something else, maybe a faintest _something else_ , enough to make them falter for a moment.

Not, of course, that Q is jealous of them, because while they may have pinned down the great 007, it’s only Q who gets to have James Bond.

They may have him for a night, but Q gets him in the morning and in his dreams.

Somehow, it all balances out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience in these slower updates! The title, aptly enough, comes from the (otherwise unrelated) Soley song of the same name.


	17. Bad Habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Let's not make me saving you from the brink of death a regular habit."

There is a knife sticking out of his side.

It’s an alarmingly new development, Q notes in a scientifically detached manner as he stares blankly at how it protrudes from just under the left side of his ribcage.

Two voices scream at him from his headset, first M and then Bond: “Q, are you there? Q, have you been hit? What happened? Bond, what happened?”

“Oh, fuck, Q, shit-shit-piss-fucking...”

“Q? Can you hear me? Come in, Q.”

_“_ I’m coming, Q, just—just don’t do anything, I’m on my way.”

“Bond, Q isn’t answering and we don’t have visual, what happened? Is Q down?”

“Fuck, bloody fucking...”

 “007? Q? I need an answer!”

This, this is why Q doesn’t like leaving Q branch; back in Q branch, he could have killed this enemy target with a click of his Enter key, cleanly and neatly, impersonally—a thousand times more dangerous. Back in Q branch, he was prepared for almost everything, and all it took was a few strokes of a computer keyboard to make sure everything went according to plan.

Here, in this god-awful hotel room in whatever hot, sticky second-world country Bond had dragged him out to, he’s been forced to improvise without any technology, and Q is a _terrible_ improviser, as evidenced by the way he sways on his feet and reaches for the hilt of the knife in his abdomen.

“I’m here, Q, I’m here.” Q’s no longer sure if Bond is trying to speak him in his mind or is shouting out loud, but either way, M is no longer screaming in his ear and Bond’s rushing into the room and shooting and shouting for medical evacuation, even as the world around Q turns hazy around the edges.

He staggers blindly forward, collapsing to the dingy beige carpet.

“Agent down, M.” is the last thing Q hears.

***~*~*~*~*~*~***

Something warm and wet nuzzles into Q’s side until he rolls over, wincing in pain.

The snow leopard’s too-blue eyes stare at Q, nervously nosing at the fox’s left flank, where congealing blood mats the fur, and pawing at the smudges of dark scarlet on the cold marble floor of MI6’s lobby.

Q gives a token whining protest as the leopard curls itself around him, but surrenders when the leopard rumbles a purr that sounds bizarrely _concerned_ as it licks at the wound marring Q’s soft left flank. He relaxes into the softness of the grey-white fur and closes his eyes, exhausted once again.

***~*~*~*~*~***

“Let’s not make me saving you from the brink of death a regular habit,” Bond whispers, setting down Q’s mug on the bedside table. “Takes a lot of paperwork to make up for an agent-down call when no one actually dies.”

“You never do your paperwork. And I thought you were in the resurrection business.”

“I thought you had a promising career in espionage.”

“Not every spy likes punching people in the face and drinking martinis, Bond.”

“Not every spy manages to lock themselves into a hotel room with one of the world’s deadliest terrorist operatives, completely disarm said operative, and somehow still end up bleeding out into the upholstery.”

“You know I’m shit at fighting, I’m the Quartermaster, I could take him down in seconds from Q branch—”

“If you don’t lie back down and relax, Q, you’re going to tear your stitches.”

“I can frame you for treason against the Crown, you know. Or erase your existence in records.”

“And I can kill you with a pen and one hand tied behind my back.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, 007,” Q grumbles. “I’m a dangerous MI6 asset.”

Bond just leans back in his chair beside the hospital bed and smirks.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Something wrong?” Moneypenny drums her fingernails against Q’s cold desktop absently as she watches him stare at the open case of equipment in front of him in disbelief.

Q looks up at her, pale and wide-eyed.

“Bond brought his gun, radio, and headset back in fully functioning order. I’m afraid the universe is going to end.”

“Maybe he's trying to make up for getting you stabbed.”

Q debates throwing the prototype for an exploding pen he'd started building for fun at Moneypenny, but he isn’t entirely sure that it’s actually a _failed_ prototype, so he settles for glowering at her until she sighs and saunters back off to M's office. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could reply to every comment here, but I just can't seem to get the time; have a general 'thank you' here! I do see all your comments, though, and I'm so glad you all like this fic! ((· ▽ ·))


	18. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The second time we met, you told me, and I quote: ‘I don’t need a Guide, and I certainly don’t need a skinny thirty-something year old in a cardigan to tell me what to do.’”

Q didn’t know bakeries still delivered, or that anyone else in Q branch was good enough to get through his firewall on his digital records and find his address.

The cake is delicious (chocolate, his favourite), though Bond’s expression of dismay is even more enjoyable than the cake, particularly when he reads the card that had been shoved into the icing.

_For a celebration of your bonding. Sincerely, Tanner M, Eve, and Q branch._

Then, in Eve’s loopy cursive:

_Also for condolences on now being inseparably mentally and psychically connected to the insufferable rock of dogged madness that is James Bond, all because of a shit romance book._

And in M’s spindly handwriting:

_For being the one man on the face of the Earth who could be more stubborn than 007._

“Am I really so stubborn?” Bond tosses the card onto the table, snatching a forkful of cake from Q’s plate.

“The second time we met, you told me, and I quote: ‘I don’t need a Guide, and I certainly don’t need a skinny thirty-something year old in a cardigan to tell me what to do.’”

“I got along just fine without you for almost forty four years, you know.”

“And I was content to be without a bond for my entire life.”

Bond tries to hide his grin by taking another bite of cake, but Q knows him too well to be fooled, rolling his eyes. “God, you really are insufferable,” Q mutters.

“You wouldn’t have it any other way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it for now, I'm sad to say. I feel like this 'ending' doesn't really do it justice, but the muse has been all written out when it comes to this specific plot line. I have a few more ideas for this 'verse, but if they come to fruition, they'll join as bits of a series. As always, thank you for your comments and kudos, I'm always happy to see that people like these things!


End file.
